Hank Sanders: Sketches #1681 - The breadth, depth, and reach of 400 years of oppression is still alive today

  Four hundred years. 400 years of struggle. 400 years being held down, being held back, being discriminated against, and being considered less than. 400 years of continuous oppression in North America. 400 years of struggle in this place that became the United States of America. 400 years is a long, long time.

  It was late August in 1619 when the pirate ship White Lion put down its anchor at the mouth of the James River in a place called Point Comfort near Jamestown, Virginia. There were 20 or more enslaved Africans aboard. They had been robbed from Africa and placed on a Portuguese ship now referred to as the San Juan Bautista. Subsequently, the captains and the crews of two British pirate ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer, robbed the Portuguese ship of about 50 of its enslaved Africans who had been robbed from what is now Angalo, West Africa. That was the inception of this enslavement in what is now the United States of America.

Trump again refuses to take responsibility for a resurgence of white nationalism

  After the deadly clash between hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protesters yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump called for Americans to “come together."

  He used similar words in his victory speech in the wee hours of Nov. 9, even as white supremacists began to celebrate.

  The problem is that Trump’s words are hollow.

  His calls for the country to unite will continue to be meaningless as long he fails to take responsibility for his role in dividing it – something he conspicuously avoided again during his press conference yesterday.

For many rural Southerners, no health care to lose

  Last week, the Senate took a series of votes aimed at repealing parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Under any of the plans put forth by Republicans – all voted down thus far – millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  But in places like southwestern Virginia, many simply have no health insurance — or access to medical care — to lose.

  Last weekend, more than 2,000 people in Wise, Virginia, waited in long lines and sweltering heat for basic health services from the Remote Area Medical Expedition. At a county fairground over a period of three days, volunteer doctors pulled teeth, performed chest X-rays, tested insulin levels, and handed out eyeglasses to people too poor or too sick to get health care any other way.

Sam Fulwood III: At long last, a wrong righted for disenfranchised Virginians

  In a stunning demonstration of political propriety and fairness, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) used his executive authority last week to restore voting rights to 210,000 convicted felons who have lawfully served their time and parole obligations in the state. It was long overdue.

  Governor McAuliffe’s order effectively negated a century of mean-spirited and misguided laws, including felon disenfranchisement, that were set in place by Reconstruction-era lawmakers intent on denying African Americans the right to vote. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated the once-onerous poll taxes and literacy laws written into the Virginia Constitution following the freeing of slaves at the end of the Civil War, laws forbidding felons from voting in the state survived—until McAuliffe, with a sweep of his pen, changed the law.